With current technologies, like lateral drilling, modern oil and gas exploration requires leasing hundreds of contiguous acres called units. Land for the Wayne National Forest was accumulated over the last 80 years in hundreds of small pieces commingled with private properties, making creating “units” impossible -- unless the federal government leases its mineral rights, which it now plans to do through an on-line auction.

Shawn Bennett, EVP of Ohio Oil & Gas Association

Credit Ohio Oil and Gas

Shawn Bennett, executive vice president of the Ohio Oil and Gas Association, says the rights, once leased, whether they were government or privately owned, can be combined to create the large aggregations that are typically more attractive to drillers. He also says that’s why land owners in the area support the auction.

It is filing an appeal with the Bureau of Land Management asking it not to go through with the sales.

Melanie Houston, director of oil and gas for the Environmental Council says her organization sees the government lease program in a different light.

“In just the last few months more than 92,000 people weighed in on this, expressing support for the Wayne. So we really feel that we’re on the side of the public here. That’s why we’re continue to do this work. And why we’ll continue to call on our public officials and the Obama administration to stop this lease.”

Even as the region’s natural gas boom is driven toward bust by depressed world energy markets, drillers have had a production breakthrough at a Utica Shale well.

Fracking forces apart rock layers. And a ‘proppant’ in the fracking fluid, usually sand, keeps the cracks open. But for deep wells, as in the Utica Shale, the weight of 2 miles of earth can squash sand grains and limit output. For a new well in Pennsylvania, drillers used man-made, ceramic beads that won’t crush. The well ‘came in’ last week with record production.

Natural gas closed at a 17-year price low today. And low prices have raised reservations from lawmakers about the strength of Ohio’s oil and gas industry. But one group is still calling for an increase to the drilling tax.

A struggling market for natural gas has led top Republican and Democratic leaders to hold back on increasing the so-called fracking tax. But the liberal-leaning think tank, Policy Matters Ohio, says data shows companies pumped more natural gas from the state’s shale last year than the year before.

A federal judge in Wyoming has struck down the Obama administration's regulations on hydraulic fracturing, ruling that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management doesn't have the authority to establish rules over fracking on federal and Indian lands.

In the ruling on Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Scott Skavdahl said Congress had not granted the BLM that power, and had instead chosen to specifically exclude fracking from federal oversight.